


Elspeth Conquers the Coronavirus

by plumesvertes



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Gen, Humor, Theros Beyond Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23457196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumesvertes/pseuds/plumesvertes
Summary: The coronavirus comes to Theros, and Elspeth has a few things to say about that.Loosely follows the events of Theros Beyond Death.
Relationships: Ashiok & Elspeth Tirel
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Elspeth Conquers the Coronavirus

A plague had descended upon Theros.

Elspeth had traveled the multiverse. Disease left no plane unharmed. She had learned a few tricks to keep illness at bay - maintaining physical hygiene, keeping your hands away from your face, avoiding crowds. She wasn’t scared of a plague, and she certainly wasn’t going to leave her home because of it.

The idiots of Theros, however, did scare her.

People flocked to Heliod’s temple to pray. They called the plague “coronavirus” - corona, as in the aura around the sun during an eclipse. Somehow, they thought that Heliod would save them from this supposed sun disease.

Elspeth went to Heliod’s temple to speak out against these gatherings. She told them to stay in their homes - didn’t they notice that after each worship, more and more people fell ill? But the crowd only accused her of heresy. Elspeth knew she had risked transmission by coming out there, but self-isolation was no longer possible. No matter where she went, one of Heliod’s fanatics would track her down, and who knows where they would spread the virus after that.

So she went where no self-respecting sun worshipper would ever go.

Athreos didn’t even notice that she wasn’t dead. The boat to the Underworld was full of hundreds of people who had died of the coronavirus, and Elspeth was lost among the crowd. 

Once they arrived, Elspeth found an empty house in Ilysia to ride out her two-week quarantine. Not that she needed to avoid going out in public - everyone here was already dead, after all - but she didn’t want to rouse suspicion. 

There was no day or night in the Underworld, so Elspeth maintained a routine to keep track of time. She did her usual conditioning regimen, which she knew lasted from morning to midday. Then she took a walk in the bountiful Ilysian nature, steering clear of any dryads. She spent her “evenings” trying out various hobbies, from whittling to hairstyling to poetry writing. 

Sleep proved to be the hardest part. Every time she closed her eyes, Elspeth was visited by nightmares. Sometimes they reflected her traumatic memories, but more often they were about the coronavirus. She saw dreamscapes where Theros was filled with corpses. In every nightmare, there lurked a dark figure with half a face. During one of the nightmares, Elspeth approached the strange being (she’d spent the past two evenings reading about lucid dreaming techniques) and asked, “Who are you?”

“I am Ashiok.”

“Can you cut it out with these dreams where everyone dies? The fatality rate isn’t that high. You’re just creeping me out.”

“I aim to inspire fear,” said Ashiok.

“When I get out of here, I’m going to tell everyone how to deal with this pandemic, and if they’re afraid of anything it’ll be of what I’ll do to them if they don’t listen.” Before Ashiok could respond, Elspeth mentally planeswalked away. 

The next night, Elspeth dreamed that Heliod betrayed her, using his own spear to strike her through the heart. Shaking her head, Elspeth pulled the spear out of her chest. “Ashiok, this really isn’t going to work on me,” she said. Elspeth woke up clutching at her chest, a warped version of Heliod’s spear next to her on the bed.

Weapon in hand, she began her journey to leave the Underworld. Quarantine time was over.

When Elspeth crossed the boundary of the Rivers that Ring the World, she was greeted by a crowd. News of her journey had clearly gotten around. “Stop,” she shouted, holding Shadowspear out in front of her. “Stay six feet away from me. Everyone needs to have a spear’s length between them,” she decreed, pointing Shadowspear threateningly at each member of the crowd until they were all appropriately distanced.

“I have an announcement. I’ve come from the Underworld, and…,” Elspeth was struck by inspiration. Taking a moment to thank Keranos, she continued with conviction. “Erebos says that all this death is too much. And this is coming from the literal god of the dead. He orders everyone to stay in their homes and away from each other until new cases have all but stopped appearing. And even then we have to keep our distance, or we’re all going to Tizerus!” 

The crowd rumbled with murmurs of guilt and panic. Those at the edge spread out even further. _Ashiok, I hope you’re seeing this._

TWO MONTHS LATER

Elspeth and Ashiok were sitting outside her house having tea. In her dream, of course, since Theros was still practicing social distancing. Suddenly, a spider crawled out of Elspeth’s teacup.

She shrieked and threw the cup in Ashiok’s direction, splattering them both with tea. Elspeth mentally conjured another cup, bug-free this time. This was their routine - Ashiok would make a token attempt to scare her and she would make a token attempt at being upset.

“There’s a pandemic going on. You get plenty of fear to feed your twisted little desires. Why is it necessary to torment me with spiders?”

“I am to inspire entertainment,” Ashiok said. “It’s hard to stoke fear in people’s hearts when they’ve become numb to it.”

The stress specter had a point. People weren’t as terrified of the disease as they were bored by staying inside all the time. It was twice as frustrating for the planeswalkers, who could planeswalk away, but refrained so they wouldn’t spread the coronavirus elsewhere in the multiverse. Even Ashiok wasn’t willing to risk that one. 

“Speaking of entertainment, my neighbor’s trying to host a party. I almost used Shadowspear on him when he knocked on my door to invite me. Want to give him a nightmare where Erebos and a bunch of zombies show up and trash his house?”

Ashiok grinned. The virus couldn’t spread through dreams, but Elspeth had to admit their mischief was infectious.

**Author's Note:**

> And then the pandemic was over and they had a Planewide Celebration


End file.
